In Response To Japanese "Antagonism" Over Senkaku Islands, China Dispatches Two Patrol Ships

Yesterday, in a rather paradoxical development, the Japanese Cabinet formally announced that the government will purchase several disputed islands that China also claims — a move that Beijing said would bring "serious consequences." The issue at hand is that China and Taiwan also claim the islands, which are part of what Japan calls the Senkakus and China the Diaoyu group. It is paradoxical because the last thing Japan, and its statutory deflationary and demographic collapse needs right now is to "antagonize" the world's fastest growing economy, and its neighbor to the west with whom it had a rather violent give or take as recently as 1945. Japan spin was naive: Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura repeated that the islands are part of Japan's territory and should not cause any friction with other countries or regions. "We certainly do not wish the issue to affect our diplomatic relations with China and it is important to resolve any misunderstanding or miscommunication." Turns out quite a bit of friction was caused as a result, as well as a substantial amount of misunderstanding and miscommunication. As Globe and Mail reports, "China has dispatched two patrol ships to the East China Sea in a show of naval strength and antagonism toward Japan after Tokyo said it had purchased a group of disputed islands from their private owners. China’s aggressive response ratcheted up tensions in a long-standing conflict between the two countries over claims to the territory."

It is now Japan's turn to explain just why China has it all wrong when it says Japan "stole" these islands from China, or else send a few patrol ships of its own, as the most unexpected rivalry suddenly escalates to much needed distraction levels. After all recall that none other than PM Noda promised two days ago to achieve 1% inflation in 1 year. For a country which has been mired in deflation for over 30 years, there may be just one way to achieve this goal, and it may just involve China in one capacity or another.

Japan’s central government said it had purchased the islands for 2.05 billion yen ($26-million U.S.) from the Japanese family it recognizes as the owner. The acquisition was intended to calm China’s concerns after the nationalist governor of Tokyo had proposed buying the Senkaku Islands and developing them.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a statement, said the purchase “cannot alter the fact the Japanese side stole the islands from China.”

“If Japan insists on going its own way, it will bear all the serious consequences that follow,” the ministry added.

Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency and mouthpiece for the ruling Communist Party, said the dispatching of ships by the China Marine Surveillance Agency was part of a broader plan to safeguard China’s sovereignty over the islands.

The nationalist fervour whipped up by Xinhua and other state media over the contested territory comes as the Chinese Communist Party is preparing for a once-in a-decade leadership transition in November. The fact that Chinese President Hu Jintao’s expected successor, Xi Jinping, has cancelled a series of diplomatic meetings and has not been seen in public for a week, has not been reported in the media in China. Regardless, some have questioned whether the Chinese government is engaging in “wag the dog” tactics and diverting attention from what now seems a wobbly leadership transition.

And since the foreplay between Israel and Iran is now entering its third year and everyone is bored out of their wits waiting for the inevitable strike to occur, perhaps it is only fitting that the next armed conflict will come, literally, out of the far left-field. Next, cue Hillary Clinton claiming that it was Syria's fault all along.

A brief history on the Senkaku conflict:

For those who need a refresh on the various geopolitical tensions in the far east, and relative military strenght, we present it again below.

Control the airspace around a Hornet's Nest and you control the Hornets...do ya thunk?!

Ba-Bow!!! Just like Hornets, all that will do is increase China's Military presence in the area as well as tensions...it won't control shit.

China's limited (but sufficient) access to open ocean is only a detriment during war time, certainly not in peace time.

Any restrictive activity hindering China's access to international shipping (exports/imports) will more than likely be met with hostility from China, and I doubt very much that Japan nor Taiwan want to pick a fight with China, nor do they have the balls.

And don't expect Uncle Sam to do much; he's too busy printing food stamps and really, he needs China as much as China needs him. Trust me, the export shit that comes out of China actually suppresses the US public as consumers need shit to buy in order to be happy. No shit = no happy, it's that fucking simple. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLRQvK2-iqQ&feature=related And I'll tell you this so it's no fucking surprise later; the US Government is a fucking bucket-load more shit scared of its own people than it is of China. 25% of US citizens have guns and more often than not it's the fucking crazies which have not one or two but an entire Army Base in their fucking basement. Look no further than the purchasing on 120-or-so thousand hollow point rounds...I spent 12 years in the Army and never saw a single hollow point, let alone 120, 000 of the fuckers! To protect what,,,Food Stamps?

Pretty soon, China will cut a deal with some other nation/s, Brazil, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, to host Military Bases and/or shared shipping port, creaping around the planet...no different than what the US did.

Hey, maybe even a Sub base in Cuba...won't that put a fucking fly in ya soup?!

The reality is, there's isn't going to be a war, not with China at any rate; China's been playng this card game way too well so far. Middle East, sure thing, why not?!

This thing with Japan and the islands...piss and vinegar...a distraction.

For most people, when they think of Chinese they think of China. When I think of Chinese I think that every western city has a China Town which does a roaring trade. I think about how much the Chinese work, everywhere, and what they spend their money on. As we speak, that cash is buying-up all the best property in all the best suburbs. I think of all the family back-chanels which Chinese people use to move money to and from family. extended family and associates in China. THAT'S the real China ZH bloggers, not the country on the map and a few piss-weak islands which China wants to have so as not to lose face internationally.

son of a European colonialism whore, ambition to become a world class pimp.

American pimp doesn't like Chinese pimp putting hands on American controlled whores. So American pimp tries to restrain young Chinese by binding feet together and putting under house arrest guarded by old whores.

On June 21, 2012, Vietnam passed a law entitled the Law on the Sea which placed both the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands under Vietnamese jurisdiction, prompting China to label the move as "illegal and invalid"

I'd lock it in, probably soon. If the Fed sends oil over 100 (they won't do QE3 this Friday for that reason), then India will step up the Vietnam joint gas venture in the south china sea, Philippines has the Spratly Islands dispute with China still kicking...then there is Japan building up it's navy

Another US War? Whose going to pay for it?? You're going to sell more T Bills to . . . . CHINA??? You all might THINK they are stupid, but as someone whose worked "over there" you've got a LOT of catching up to do. Stupid they are NOT, and where there's potentially big money involved, the Chinese are VERY astute businesspeople.

China's not Afghanistan, nor Iraq, not Libya. China is currently VERY GOOD FRIENDS with Russia, and the US of A's planning to "intervene"??!!

Seems a good recipe for WW3 - the war that NO-ONE will win ('cause no-one will be alive once it's over).

"Beam me up Scotty, there's definitely NO intelligent life on THIS Planet!"

U.S has 71 Nuke subs that are in a class of their own in fact littoral waters are not safe havens anymore.. China can send all the patrol boats they like but if I were them I would pak them full of ping pong balls first, ala Mythbusters, love Carrie..

agreed; China would learn that it isn't a good idea to bring a patrol boat with an inexperienced crew to a naval battle with the US and/or Japan. Can you think of any great Chinese naval battles in say the last two thousand years? didn't think so

Bankers need wars to make enormous profits thru debt creation. We had been expecting the Rothschild syndicate to goad a China/India war for the greatest payoff. Instead, maybe we're wrong and it's someone else. Poor dears.

Pakistan and India - they really love each other don't they, AND they are both fully fledged Nuclear Powers.

All it needs is some local border disagreement, and a "trigger-happy" event, and this is where we could realistically see the start of a significant nuclear exchange.

Would it remain contained? No idea, but I'd not be betting the Family Heirlooms on effective containment, with or without outside intervention.

Mind you with recent events demonstrating the instability of the Indian Grid, all it needs is an EMP event to shut down all the Country, and wouldn't it be tempting to initiate such an event to coincide with a solar CME - to provide an "external reason" for a "natural disaster".

Unlikely scenario? Not according to the comments in the Times of India article on the big grid failure. Plenty of suspicion of "external involvement" in that too.

Far too many nuclear weapons around, and far too many crazy people looking after them.

Let's just get this US/China thing over with already. China is the next superpower, and the U.S. is done. The Chinese are so smart & patient. They are so going to kick the world's ass over the long haul.

Central planning doesn't have a great track record. My guess is you're wrong. Liberty returns to the USA and the rest of the world is left for dead when we come roaring back. Globalism is dying. Nationalism with a focus on freedom and liberty are our destiny.

Yeah... china is in the cat bird's seat. One billion three hundred and forty four million mouths to feed and a net importer of food since the mid 1990's. They provide a boatload of near slave labor that the global economy keeps marginally employed through the bubble that is the global economy... but that slave labor is going to become restless when the wheels stop turning. The US is likely done, but we are taking everyone down with us... don't kid yourself.

Not to mention that industrial production is moving to robot labor. Chinese worker-bee factories are fast becoming obsolete. What are those hundreds of millions of suddenly uncompetitive factory workers going to do then?

Plus, if China was on its way to taking over the world why are all the rich Chinese getting foreign passports and buying bug-out homes in U.S., Canada, and Australia?

If we have to bet the outcome of the dispute, I would bet the Chinese will lose. They always lose. Think about this, you have seen british colony, french colony, spanish colony, have you ever seen or heard of a Chinese colony? They have history of 5000 years.

Pretty sure the original landmass of the Chinese tribe was the size of New Jersey. How do you think they got so big? The Chinese take the long and assimilation way towards conquest.

The Japanese should be thanking their lucky stars they got nuked by Americans, otherwise the capital of Japan today would be in Beijing and Mandarin would be the lingua franca of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Just look at what happened to the Manchus.

A colony is an inefficient and hamfisted way to control foreigners. The Chinese prefer a tributary relationship, whereby the lessers bring the good stuff to THEM. It works so much better that way. You're looking for a guy in a pith helmet. If you want evidence of Chinese imperialization, just walk down to your local Apple store and realize who your master is.

every nation in existence today stole the land from someone else. The US is not the exception. And, the American Indians stole their land from other American Indians also. The world is a tough place; get used to it.

Come on get with the program and think like an elite with no conscience. If we wouldn't have nuked Japan ,killing hundreds of thousands of people,we wouldn't have a vassal state we could put bases in to keep China in check. You need to keep the long term in mind. A demonstration of the countries willingness to nuke a country is sometimes enough.

I'm going to propose a solution to the problem of ownership of the Spratleys and Senkakus and any other disputed islands. Have the U.S. Navy place 100 smart mines around each island. Then, no-one can approach the islands and the birds and fish can live there in peace. I call this the Solomon approach.

Here's another solution that involves the US Navy; with the USN and Japanese Imperial Navy elminatie the Chinese Navy in one week and then close their access to the sea. The US actually maintains an admirality and generations of fighting men. The Japanese had great Navies against the Russians pre WWI and again in WWII; they haven't forgotten how to run a Navy. The Chinese - never had a Navy and would lose it in a week of serious disagreements; just because you have pieces on the chess board doesn't mean you can put them to practical use. Only the US, Japan, UK and Russia have real navies; the rest are to show those that don't know better. That's why Spain can't cross the Atlantic to get their companies back from Argentina and why the French can't even cross the Med. Shock-la-bluea!

Here is what you add to the second one... I can't quickly find better data than this, but the Chinese population in 2008 for children age 0-14...male 142,085,665/female 125,300,391 (2008 est.).

For those counting at home, that's 17,000,000 more boys than girls, or more than 1 million more boys born each year than girls. Soooo.... just some back of the napkin numbers, but I'm guessing there are something like 20 million unmarried and likely frustrated men between the ages of 18 and 32. When the global economy grinds to halt, they might need something to take their minds off of being single, unemployed and unwanted.

It's an even worse ratio for those guys when you consider all the Chinese girls that don't date Chinese guys. That one child policy, while needed, has rendered them a society without brothers, without sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts. When their parents die, many of them will have zero relatives. Kind of scary to think about that society.

I understand that those girls, suddenly realizing their true value as a scarce commodity, have grown mighty particular. Boys with no prospects need not apply. I understand desperate young men have been known to kidnap girls and carry them off. I bet they're sorry they let Americans adopt all those unwanted little girls.

I bet there are lots of nice young North Korean girls who would just hop at the change to hook up with a Chinese factory worker, but it is all those unwanted little girls who were born with ethnic Chinese eggs in their ovaries.

Non Japanese ppl do not understand the depth of feeling in Japan about this matter. Japan schoolchildren are taught that they got nuked twice for one primary reason -- they have no oil. The earthquakes of millions of years has eliminated any oil they might have ever had. And the result of this was they bombed Pearl to ensure no threat to the Indonesian supply when FDR embargoed American oil exports (the US was the Saudi Arabia of that era) to Japan (who were abusing China at the time).

But regardless of historical perspective, Japanese kids are taught that they are the only country on Earth to be nuked, twice, and it was because of oil. Now, they would seem to have some oil on their territory and China seems to be trying to steal it.

Japan is not going to tolerate this.

Never ever forget for the rest of your life that from now on, oil decides everything and is the impetus for all politics.

That's the same kind of brainwashing shit they do in china. I thought Japanese people are smart up cuz they got nuked twic by Americans. Guess not. Those oil will be there for long time, and China and Japan will come to some kind of term on this one.

Is oil the reason they got nuked twice? thats not BS? I thought they got really far to the pearl harbor and fucked the US interest is the reason they got nuked. Am I wrong about this? You can sit there claiming whatever you want. The reality is that if there is fight, both countries will go down, and Japan suffers more. I don't see a real fight. They will shut their mouths and come to a term.

As long as the poor are subsided to be feed, homed and universal healthcare is available. Grand theft banking auto will continue to removed money from your banking account to redistribute to another poor folk.

Well they're certainly eating our lunch economically in holding a trillion plus of our treasuries. That is, if they can collect. If not, I'm sure there will be a billion plus Chinese who will be pissed!

Of course, the Great Wall didn't do one wit of good and ended up bankrupting several dynasties and preventing them from investing in an exploration fleet in the 1400s. Maybe they learned from their mistakes.

I think you're out to lunch, Tylers. Japan owes no more explanation to China than the US does to France for owning Michigan. Japanese soveriengty has been undisputed here for a very long time and China has a track record of seeking any place it can to antagonize its neighbors over littoral claims. Can you say bullying? Does Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Brunei also "owe China an explanation." Since when is operating as a negotiating partner in good faith with the world community "naive?" China is the one with a problem, not Japan.

to have thing gets straight..... please do some research in history before saying too much

The Diaoyu Islands issue was settled after World War II. The United States has nonetheless managed to turn it into a complicated dispute.

The Diaoyu Islands and surrounding islets have been the inherent territory of China since ancient times, and were first discovered, named and used by the Chinese. The earliest historical record of the Diaoyu Islands can be dated back to China’s Ming Dynasty about 650 years ago in a book titled "Voyage With a Tail Wind," published in 1403. The book records the first usage of "Diaoyu Islet" and "Chiwei Islet". The names refer to the current Diaoyu Islands and Chiwei Islet.

Hu Zongxian, the Zhejiang governor of the Ming Dynasty, placed the Diaoyu Islands and surrounding islets within China’s maritime defense system. It demonstrates that the islands have been within China’s maritime defense sphere since the Ming Dynasty. Japan claimed sovereignty during the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, seizing the islands by illegal means.

Back in 1582, the Diaoyu islands was officially incorporated into the Chinese territory as a part of Fujian Province. Until the late Qing Dynasty, there was absolutely no ambiguity as to the ownership of the islands. For centuries the Diaoyu Islands were administered as part of Taiwan (or Formosa, as Taiwan was called before 1945).

Japan took the Liu Chiu Islands, which Japan calls Okinawa (formerly known as Ryukyu Islands), by force from China in 1874, when the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was invaded by several countries. The Diaoyu Islands, though, remained under the administration of Taiwan.

In 1895, as the Qing government’s defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War was all but certain, Japan illegally occupied the Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islands. After that, Japan forced the Qing government to sign the unequal Treaty of Shimonoseki and cede to Japan “the island of Formosa (Taiwan), together with all islands appertaining or belonging to the said island of Formosa”. Since then, Japan incorporated the Diaoyu islands into its territory as a part of Okinawa Prefecture.

After the end of the Second World War, China recovered the territories invaded and occupied by Japan such as Taiwan and the Penghu Islands in accordance with the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation. According to international law, the Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islands have already been returned to China at the end of World War II. The Japanese government accepted the terms of these documents, including one saying “that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa (as Taiwan was called before 1945), the Pescadores (or Penghu Islands), shall be restored to the Republic of China”.

Facts are facts, and history is not to be reversed. Japan’s position on the issue of the Diaoyu Island is an outright denial of the outcomes of the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War and constitutes a grave challenge to the post-war international order.

Article 2 of the Treaty of Peace with Japan, which was signed in 1951 by Japan and the allied powers, states: “Japan renounced all right, title and claim to Formosa and the Paracels.” Article 4 of a separate peace treaty signed in 1952 by Japan and the Republic of China declared that ALL agreements made between Japan and China BEFORE 1941 were NULL AND VOID.

As stated above, it’s perfectly logical to conclude that the Diaoyu Islands, being part of the Taiwan territories, have been returned to China.

So where do the claims to the contrary come from?

In part from an ILLEGAL TREATY the United States and Japan signed in San Francisco in 1951 in the ABSENCE of CHINA, one of the victors in the war. Article 3 of the treaty wrongly (intentionally) assigned the Diaoyu Islands and other islets to the Liu Chiu Islands, which was then under the US’ control. [THE US intentionally planted a time-bomb in the East China Sea.]

On September 18th, 1951, then Chinese Premier and Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai made a solemn statement on behalf of the Chinese government that the Treaty of Peace with Japan signed in San Francisco was illegal and invalid, and would not be recognized without the participation and signing of the People’s Republic of China.

In 1953, the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands arbitrarily expanded its jurisdiction to include the Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islands, which are in fact Chinese territories.

In June 1971, Japan and the United States signed a pact to hand over Okinawa to Japan. The Diaoyu Islands were mapped into the handover area. China’s Foreign Ministry announced on December 30th 1971 that such a move was "totally illegal" and reiterated that the Diaoyu Islands and surrounding islets were "an integral part of the Chinese territory".

After 1972, when the US handed over the Diaoyu Islands, as well as the Liu Chiu Islands, to Japan under the Okinawa Reversion Agreement, Japan once again began to administer the islets. Even so, that agreement did not and could not recognize Japan’s control over the islands. The country is now trying to use its “nationalization” plan to pretend it has sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands.

The principle of "shelving disputes and seeking common development" set forth by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 has been the basic rule for China and Japan to handle the Diaoyu Islands dispute in the past 30 years. Both countries claimed sovereignty over the islands while waiting for an appropriate time to resolve the dispute, and neither country will make concessions in this regard.

This is how Japan gets out from under Article 9's pacifism and finds a way to spend even more money it doesn't have, to develop a "real" military. The amount of shovel-ready jobs floating around here after Fukushima boggles the mind. This country is running on shovel-ready jobs now so may as well go all in and get some harware, too. The winds of war...

Fairly sneaky timing on Japan's part, to pull this move as China heads into the changeover. It could easily blow up in their faces, though - Japan has been sucking China's tits for the past decade and simply can not exist without Chinese money. They know it, the Chinese know it. I'll bet anyone that this goes bad for Japanvbefore it gets better.

The language in the Potsdam Declaration states Japan has to "return" those islands to China. Signed by the emperor, himself. Is there any real debate as to who owns them?

I have no idea what you're talking about. Perhaps you could be more clear. Article 8 of the Postdam Declaration states:

The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.

The Senkakus and other islands to the south were all adjudged to be an intergral part of Okinawa Prefecture, which was restored to fully Japanese sovereignty by a US military governorship in 1972.

Furthermore, the Japanese Emperor never signed the Potsdam Declaration. If he had, the bombs never would have been dropped and the war would have been over.

The disageement from the Chinese side is that they (PRC) never signed the Treaty of San Francisco with Japan as did all the other powers (sans USSR) because they weren't actually a country. Now they come back 70 years later and start claiming the spoils of the Pacific War.

1) After the Japanese surrender & the 1951 treaty which gave control of the islands to the American, China was soon embroiled in another civil war between the Kuomintang vs CPC until the Communists emerged victorious & in control of the country.

2) Not soon after that, came the proxy wars that were fought in Korea & Vietnam where Red China along with USSR were involved directly in helping their commie brothers in their fights against Western imperialism.

3) Then came a period of a Cold War between the Western world & Communism.

4) Until the 1970s, the United States recognized the Republic of China on Taiwan as the legitimate government of mainland China and did not maintain diplomatic relations with the Communist regime of the People's Republic of China. In the midst of the Cold War, the Sino-Soviet split provided an opening for the U.S. to establish ties with mainland China and establish it as a counter to the Soviet Union, at which both the US & China finally established diplomatic relation in Jan 1st 1979.

5) That was after the little great man called Deng Xiaoping first opened out China to the world of capitalism in 1978.

So, it must be noted that the US handed over the islands to Japan, its ally, in 1972, right at that time.....

a) When China was still in a period of Cold War with the Americans.

b) When China was still a backward & impoverished nation where there were more important issues in the country to attend than instead of the barren unihabitated islets.

c) Taiwan had too weak the leader then and thus in no position to question what the Superpower was doing.

Above reasons partly explained why both China & Taiwan didn't take any action during that period.

The Chinese military is indeed a gitantic Paper Tiger. Back in 2004, they got rid of the navy's the number two boss out of political reasons. They found he had embezzled about $7 million USD cash , and about 100 million Chinese RMB cash stored at two of his residences.

* The Tears of Nanjing: Thoughts and Reflections on the Nanjing Massacre

In memory of the (at least) 300,000 Chinese murdered during the Nanjing Massacre.

What is often ignored in Western education curriculum, and unknown to Western society in general, is the fact that War in Asia had already erupted by 1937 with the Japanese invasion of China and the subsequent takeover of the then capital city of Nanjing, 4 entire years before the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Japanese expansionism had already begun by the early 1930s with the occupation of the northeastern part of China and the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo. Full scare war between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China officially began by July 1937 following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. By August of 1937, the Japanese launched a full scale assault on the city of Shanghai. They were met with heavy resistance from the Chinese Nationalist army but eventually captured the city after weeks of brutal fighting. By then, the then-leader of China, Chiang Kai Shek, knew that the Japanese’s eventual target would be Nanjing. Knowing that the city would be lost, Chiang Kai Shek pulled out and relocated his government to Wuhan and later Chongqing. He left with most of the Nationalist army in preparation for future battles, leaving only a small, disorganized and greatly undersupplied battalion of soldiers left to defend Nanking. The Japanese slowly made their way to Nanjing after the fall of Shanghai.

The Japanese arrived outside the city walls on December 8, 1937. After 5 days of fighting with the remaining Nationalist army, the wall was breached. The Chinese army remaining in Nanjing were vastly outnumbered and outmatched by the superior Japanese forces and weaponry. After the city fell on December 13, 1937, the Chinese army surrendered their weapons and hoped to be treated with mercy by the occupying Japanese forces. They couldn’t have been more wrong. The events that followed later became known in history as the Nanjing Massacre.

Nanjing was embroiled in total chaos and lawlessness. The state of chaos and anarchy allowed the Japanese army to do whatever they wanted to in the city. The feeling of domination and power over the civilians of Nanjing and the powerless Chinese soldiers who have given up arms eventually overwhelmed the Japanese soldiers who saw Chinese people as inherently inferior. The sense of power they felt eventually led them to pillage the entire city and commit gruesome atrocities that numb the human conscience. The Japanese Army’s motto at the time was: “Kill All, Loot All, Burn All”. During the occupation of Nanjing, the Japanese army committed a gross range of atrocities in the city which included, but were not limited to, raping women to death, burying civilians and prisoners of war alive, mass executions, beheadings, and the murdering of entire families from children to the old and infirm. Many of the soldiers who gave up their arms stole civilian clothes in order to avoid capture. John Rabe was given assurance by Japanese military officials that soldiers who have given up arms would be spared. Yet this assurance was futile. The Japanese soldiers summarily rounded up thousands of people from the Nanjing Safety Zone whom they accused of being soldiers disguised in civilian clothing, tied them up in groups and led them to the banks of the Yangtze River for mass execution. These groups of men were lined up along the banks of the Yangtze and machine gunned. Those who did not die from gunfire were later bayoneted or beheaded by Japanese soldiers. A Japanese soldier recalled seeing “rows and rows of dead body mountains.”

Tyler, Japan per se - not being much of a part of the REAL conflict, which is about OIL AND GAS - what isn't these days? - is a Straw Man for those China considers the real aggressors, Exxon and countries on its coattails, which include Vietnam and, I believe, the Philippines.

People making Market Bets on this quasi-artificial conflict need to understand why China's partial Talisman and full Nexen bids are at the heart of a resolution to the situation.

One way or the other - involving a lot of horse-trading and Oil-trading - China is pretty certain to prevail.